Will medical cannabis treatment reduce pharmaceutical residues in the aquatic environment? A case study from an elderly nursing home

Abstract

High drug consumption and polypharmacy, especially in the elderly, is one of the 21 century phenomenon. It has different undesirable side effects, which may directly affect the environment. It is known that pharmaceutical residues are excreted via patients’ urine or feces to waste water, which is then discharged to the environment. Therefore high drug consumption is contributing to the continual rise in pharmaceutical residues in the aquatic environment, and address a rising cause for concern. Alternative treatments that can relieve or improve the patient’s clinical condition, thereby reducing the consumption of pharmaceuticals, hold great potential for reducing drug residues in the environment. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the reduction in pharmaceutical consumption in a nursing home for the elderly, as a result of treatment with medical cannabis. With time, medical cannabis treatment dramatically improved patients’ symptoms and their medical indexes. As a result, the local physicians stopped prescribing drugs that were defined as unnecessary. Overall, 39 dosages of prescription drugs were cancelled for the 19 elderly individuals included in this research, indicating that medical cannabis can be an effective treatment that also reduces the environmental drug load, thereby preventing water pollution.